1910-1920. Her father became a citizen and opened a drugstore in 1950. While I was dating Marta, her mother was studying English preparing for her citizenship test. After the wedding, the senora was able to welcome me into the family with two words in English: “No givebacks!”
To the true regret of both of us, I soon was forced to do exactly that.
We had been married only three months when my orders arrived in June of 1957 assigning me to the last squadron of F-86Fs on active duty, the Fighting 69th, at Osan, Korea. My squadron commander at Myrtle Beach bent the rules and let me finish F-100 training before I shipped out to Korea. Marta told me that she was pregnant. This was when I started to learn that if you have a good marriage in the military, you will probably wind up with a great marriage, if it lasts. Our eighteen-month courtship consisted of seven dates.
Even though the war had ended in July of 1953, Osan Air Base, thirty miles south of the Korean capital at Seoul, was on a wartime footing. The squadron’s purpose was to provide fighters capable of striking northward, supporting the Korean and American units emplaced along the demilitarized zone and achieving air superiority. We had about fifteen minutes to launch defending aircraft in case we were attacked.
Sabre pilots were a rare breed, flying the hottest machine of its time, the greatest sports car ever invented for the air. When flying overseas, you had no regulations. We buzzed everything in sight, flying as fast and as low as our nerves would allow. This was balls-out flying. We did things we would never be permitted to do stateside. Every flight ended in a mock dogfight with one or more pilots diving, rolling, and scissoring for advantage. The fights continued until you ran out of altitude or you had the other guy on your gun camera film. This confidence was essential to aggressive flight performance.
The Soviets’ launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, while I was on a thirty-day deployment at Tainan Air Base on Formosa gave the Cold War a new dimension. I had seen the Russian fighters pulling contrails over the Korean demilitarized zone and the Straits of Formosa. Now their new prowess in space raised doubts about America’s commitment to lead the free world. I could suddenly see shadows of doubt about America’s technological superiority in the eyes of the Nationalist Chinese pilots.
I finally got my own airplane, an F-86F, serial 24872. I promptly named it
I drew a forward air control assignment with the Army 7th Infantry division in January 1957. My job for a month was to lead a small ground team that directed air strikes by Air Force and allied fighter aircraft supporting the Army front-line troops. This FAC experience prepared me to work effectively with the forward air controller as a pilot attacking targets. I do not think any work in my life has ever been as demanding as close air support missions. Every element of mind, body, and soul was working intuitively and perfectly, putting the pieces together, planning ahead, communicating and pressing the attack. With mountains on all sides, poor visibility, and the high aircraft speeds, it was incredible we did not lose more pilots—and we were just training.
The 69th Squadron was counting down the days to decommissioning and returning stateside. I was looking forward to my next assignment. Marta was doing well in the latter part of her pregnancy, counting the days until the arrival of our first child and my return. On my last flight in a Sabre, I ferried the airplane to Taiwan and turned it over to the Nationalist Chinese.
Returning from the ferry flight, I was furious when I found out that my next orders took me to Altus, Oklahoma, to train in KC-135 jet tankers. I could not believe that with all the pilots coming out of flight school, the Air Force would take operational fighter pilots and send them to tankers. I had flown a Sabre at 400 knots, forty feet above the ground, missiles and guns blowing away everything in my wake. This was the environment I craved. And now I was going to fly tankers?
The assignment dimmed the joy of our returning home, and the K-55 Officers Club rang with the sad songs of the 69th fighter pilots. We had all received the same orders. I wrote Marta a long letter that evening telling her I would be returning to civilian life. The next morning I requested my discharge from active duty.
I wrote to four aircraft companies, hoping to get a job that offered a cockpit position. Marta was waiting in San Francisco and, after a joyful reunion, we left for Texas so I could meet my new baby daughter, Carmen. After spending so much time overseas I looked at my country with an even greater love and appreciation.
The only job offer came from McDonnell, and my feelings on returning to St. Louis were mixed. I missed the flying and the camaraderie of the pilots, and the daily adventures we lived in Korea. But Harry Carroll’s exuberance helped me through the first few weeks and gradually I adapted to being a civilian.
I was assigned to the F-101 Voodoo flight test. I could touch the aircraft, brief the pilots, check the preflight instruments, and climb into the seat, but I could not fly the planes. That hurt. Fresh from Korea, I was used to doing things for myself and I got crosswise with McDonnell’s union mechanics and inspectors on a variety of issues. Union stewards became familiar faces to my bosses and I was directed to follow the rules. I had been on the job only a few weeks and I was already thrashing around, trying to get a job done and unhappy with my new role.
In October of 1958, McDonnell posted a notice for flight test assignments at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. I applied. Holloman is located sixty-five miles north of El Paso, Texas, and is near White Sands. The Sacramento Mountains lie to the east and lava beds to the north. The valley is a giant corridor stretching 150 miles, almost to Albuquerque. The first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity site at the midpoint of the corridor. The vast, uninhabited areas provided the remote location needed to test the early developments in rocketry and aircraft missile systems.
When I arrived, every conceivable type of test was being conducted. High-speed sleds shrieked across the desert, balloon flights took man to the edge of the atmosphere, and parachute jumps were made from altitudes of over 100,000 feet. Aircraft were being tested with new missile systems and the Army was using rockets to shoot B-17s from the sky. The Zero Launch projects strapped pilots into airplanes that were powered by rockets and screaming engines. In a burst of fire and smoke the pilots were sent airborne. The Matador and the Mace, pilotless bombs with wings and jet engine, were zero-launched as well. Occasionally, one would get loose over the town, flying erratically until it crashed into the mountains or drifted back over the test range and was downed by the shotgun aircraft.
I admired the steely raw guts of the pilots, engineers, and doctors who volunteered for these tests, pushing their bodies and minds to find the boundaries of human performance. Holloman ran on the pure energy of the test projects. The air crackled with high-altitude missile firings and the flight line never slept. I felt alive again.
The Quail, powered by a small jet engine, was McDonnell Aircraft’s entry into a competition to develop a decoy missile that could be launched from the bomb bays of the B-47 and the eight-jet B-52, the most advanced bombers in the U.S. arsenal. The decoy’s purpose was to confuse the Russian air defense systems by replicating the radar signature of a large bomber.
The head of the Quail flight test was Ralph Saylor, known as “The Great White Hunter.” Saylor was six feet tall, lanky but imposing. He had a sun-bleached crew cut, a great bushy mustache, and crystal blue eyes that peered out from beneath a brown Aussie hat. He was formidable; there was never any doubt about who was in charge of the 200 yards of the McDonnell flight line at Holloman. In short order, he assigned me as the lead flight test engineer for the B-52, with authority over the aircraft. No one got a seat without my okay. My job was to plan the mission, install the launch gear and missiles, test the missile and launch system, and hand the flight test data to the engineers. It was my baby, politics and all.
In the meantime our family continued to grow. On July 27, 1959, we were blessed with our second daughter, Lucy. I was nervous and clumsy in my first experience with a new baby, but savored the chance to share Marta’s delight. Carmen was walking, not a rare thing, but I would watch for hours mesmerized as she learned to balance, standing uncertainly, then stutter-stepping around the room. We enjoyed our weekends driving through the mountains from Cloudcroft, New Mexico, to the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. We formed friendships with the families of the flight test team and, in many ways, it was like being back in the Air Force.
Jack Ernst was the ground test conductor and on hot missions (with live missiles to be air-launched) he operated from King 1, the range control center, plotting the armada of chase, photo, and shotgun aircraft that accompanied a Quail launch. He made sure that we observed the range safety boundaries and that we stood by for any test replanning or flight contingencies. Jack was always trying to get volunteers to join him in the Officers Club annual rattlesnake roundup. Prowling through the lava beds, Jack had collected several over six feet long. He was not easily disturbed by the critters of the desert.
In December, shortly after noon one day, I received a call from Jack. “We have a problem,” he said. “Meet
